Dried, Parched & Popped corn.

Dried Corn, Parched Corn, & Popped Corn.

There are several ways you can cook & preserve corn. Corn can be boiled, & it can be added to other vegetables & meat. Corn can be parched & ground into a meal or flour & carried on the trail as a trail food. This ground parched meal can have water added to it to make it more palatable. Corn can also be popped & eaten & this popped corn can also be carried as a trail food.

Left to right: Parched corn, dried corn, & popped corn.

Corn can be dried on the cob by hanging it from it’s outer leafy layer & it can then be stored. Or this dried corn can be parched & stored or ground into a meal & stored.

Dried corn can be made by cutting the corn from the cob & spreading it on bark in the sun, or it can be dried on the cob by hanging in the sun. Dried corn is just that, corn which has been dried. But parched corn is a super dried corn. To parch corn you can either: remove it from the cob & spread it on flat rocks in or around the fire, or you can place it in the hot ashes until done & then sift the ashes. When pottery came into use, a clay pot would be placed in the fire at an angle & hot ashes would be piled up & placed over the pot. Shucked corn would then be placed into the pot to parch. When parched, the corn kernels would be hard & crisp.

Another way to use the clay pot was to part fill the pot with hot ashes, & then add the shucked corn. Later when iron pots & skillets were available, the shucked corn would be placed in these & shaken periodically to make sure the corn kernels did not burn. I have found no mention of oil or grease being used in the parching process.

Popped corn was made with a different corn to the normal white, yellow or sweet corns. Popped corn is a type of flint corn, & to make it you can place it on a hot flat rock in the fire, or you can place it in hot ashes. When it pops, the kernels will jump from the fire or the ashes & must be retrieved. If placed in an iron pot with a lid, it may be wise to rub a little grease round the inside of the pot, but not too much.

Drying corn on the cob by tying the gathered husk & hanging.

AMERICAN INDIAN CORN DISHES By 1CPuriel H. Wright

Botah Kap.ussa (Cold Flour) : Shell corn from the cob when the grain has reached the stage where it is firm but not dry. Place the shelled corn in a large pot of hot ashes, keeping the pot over coals of fire until the corn is parched a golden brown, in the meantime stirring the grain to keep it from scorching. Put the corn into the fanner, and clean off the ashes. Next pound the corn in the mortar until the husks are loosened. Again clean out the husks from the grain in the fanner. Beat the clean corn into flour in the mortar. This parched corn flour may be sweetened with enough sugar to taste. Add enough water to dampen a small serving, and eat as a cereal. A small amount of botah kapussah will go a long way as food. In tribal times, the Indian hunter took a small bag of this unsweetened food with him on long expeditions, often traveling many days with nothing else to eat except botaic kapussuh, a little at a time generally mixed with water. This cold flour was a boon on a long hunting expedition because a small amount was nourishing, and a bag of it was light and easy to carry.

http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Chronicles/v036/v036p155.pdf

Parched Corn or Nokehick
[Parched corn was called nokehick by the Indians, but the Englishmen called it nocake.]
 “Nocake, as they call it which is nothing but Indian corne parched in the hot ashes being sifted from it, it is afterward beaten to a powder, and put into a long leatherne bag, trussed at their backe like a knapsake; out of which they take thrice three spoonfulls a day, dividing it into three meales.”

Wood's New England's Prospects [1634]

 “Parched meal...is a readie wholesome food which they eate with a little water, not or cold; I have travelled with neere 200 of them at once, neere 100 miles through the woods, every man carrying a little basket of this at his back, and sometimes in a hollow Leather Girdle about his middle sufficient for a man three or foure daies: With this readie provision, and their Bow and Arrowes, are they ready for War, and travell at an houres warning. With a spoonfull of this meale and a spoonefull of water from the Brooke, have I made many a good dinner and supper.”

Roger Williams A Key into the Language of America [1643]

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mosmd/foods.htm

Maxi'diwiac (Buffalo Bird Woman) (ca.1839-1932) of the Hidatsa Indian Tribe

Originally published as

Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians: An Indian Interpretation by Gilbert Livingstone Wilson, Ph.D. (1868-1930)

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/buffalo/garden/garden.html

18th Century Wilderness Living; Pack Items.

18^th Century Wilderness Living; Pack Items.

When living in the wilderness you need to be able to look after yourself, your tools & your equipment. Even if your wife/husband is with you, you still need to be self-reliant. In this way, should you become separated for any reason, then you are both able to survive.

  The awl is used for repairing and making leather and tree bark items, such as moccasins, pouches, belts knife sheaths, containers, and pack straps. It can also function as a tool to remove large splinters. In the image above you can see a wooden sheath bound in waxed linen thread. This wooden sheath is made to fit over the metal shaft of the awl. The top example is one that I made myself, which I now use at home. The lower one is an original awl which once belonged to my Father. It is this lower awl with the wooden sheath that I carry in my pack at all times.

Damage to clothing and equipment is bound to happen sooner or later when travelling in the wilderness; tears in clothing lets in the cold air in winter and the mossies during summer. A tear in your oilcloth will let in the rain. If such damage is left unrepaired, then it is inevitable that these tears will increase in size over time, so it is important to repair them as soon as possible. To this end most woodsrunners carry some for of sewing equipment.

This is my “Housewife”, it contains; needles, two sizes of linen thread, spare buttons, rolls of sinew, and beeswax for waxing the thread and sealing any tears in my oilcloth.

I was once operated on without any rum to dull my brain and only a piece of rolled rag to place between my teeth. I was younger then and yet was so disabled at this time that I fear in my now later years I might not fare so well. So it is then that I determined to carry with me some form of medical equipment and a bottle of rum.

  The rum bottle I have secured in an old leather drawstring pouch. My medical provisions though very little do hopefully serve my needs in the case of injury or snake bite.

A blade is only as good as it is kept, and a blunt blade is of little use at all. So I carry a small metal file and a whet stone. Creek stones can be used, I used one for some time myself, but as soon as I was able I secured a proper whet stone.

These two items are well worth the extra weight, though in truth they both weigh little, but every small item combined with other small items does add weight to your pack.

Keeping reasonably clean is important to me, even though I may go for long periods of time without washing anything but my hands and face. Nothing is more refreshing to me than washing in a cold forest stream first thing in the morning, & after a long walk dipping my feet in cool water and then drying by the fire.

 I have at times washed using wood ashes from my fire, and at other times sand, but nothing compares to using soap. I carry a piece of soap and a broken piece of an ivory comb in a cloth bag.